Bahrain in media, divergence of perception and reality

Where press fairness and objectivity become blurred.

By Dominika Bzduchova

Prague, 16 May 2014—Tens of local and foreign (journalists and other media) personnel met last Wednesday to honor the pioneers of Bahraini press and media sphere.

Held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and organized under the wings of the Bahrain Journalists’ Association (BJA), the Al Noor Ballroom in the Ritz Carlton Hotel first hosted the awards ceremony. Following a short break, the attendees eagerly gathered around five roundtables to jointly embark on an hours-long discussion of Bahrain’s media presence and overall stance, mired in between perception and reality.

The key topics included Press as an Objective Socio-Politico Broker, Human Rights Activism, Social Networking and New Media, Ethical Standards of Journalistic Conduct, and Investigative Journalism of Political Activism & Activity.

Bahrain and its ‘freedoms spirit’ appear in sharp contrast with the stereotype of an oil-rich, closed-off kingdom of Islam, run by a strict autocratic rule. The real experience an independent observer gets is, however, somewhat contradictory; you enter the country more smoothly than a year ago although having a ‘journalist’ marked on your visa sheet would, in the past, suggest an unavoidable ‘cold shower of problems. The downtown is always buzzing, new buildings are popping up on Manama skyline as you drive down the King Faisal Highway, and there are no instances of military checkpoints or any police involvement except for traffic guards on duty.

When you type ‘Bahrain’ into Google News, you have to be lucky to find one positive title. Seems like Google does’ know everything; it only aggregates the one-sided, distant, ‘cozy-armchair-written’ releases about human rights abuses, unlawful interrogations, and forced testimonies.

On May 7th, we attempted to shed more light onto these unfounded allegations and go into the bases to uncover what fuels them—is it a deliberate ignorance, a mere lack of interest, or just a naïve misunderstanding? And who are the main contributors to this chaos that consciously misshape the already hampered international image of Bahrain?

If you think the BJA was very strict when drafting the list of participants to the discussion, your guess is simply wrong. The BJA approached individual researchers, geopolitics experts and critics—from both the Middle East and the West—all to avoid a biased picture of Bahrain, which has been so vividly drawn by the worldwide media since early 2011.

Indeed the Kingdom is in a great need of positive—and not randomly manufactured—stories to balance its flawed international reputation, and the relevant authorities with the aid of international in-field experts are making their efforts to finally bring this little island out of the deteriorated spotlight because Bahrain does truly deserve better.